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WHO: Jake Jensen
WHERE: The Alvarez-Jensen-Sawyer residence's back yard
WHEN: April 10
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: excessive singing by a very, very white man
STATUS: ongoing

Perhaps he should be suspicious of the nearly idyllic weather that's settled over this godforsaken hellhole, but Jake has always tried his best to live in the moment as much as possible, especially in situations where he can't control the future in any real way, shape, or form. And since it doesn't look like they'll be getting out of here any time soon, he's settled into the idea that he might as well focus on the present and enjoy what good moments they can scratch out of this shitty little life.

Okay, he can't honestly be too mad about this. It sucks that they're trapped, but he's spent two solid weeks trapped in the jungle with Cougar before, and that was with a broken ankle and a concussion and no glasses, with enemy soldiers hunting them down to try and kill them, so this already has a huge leg up on that nightmare. At least here he has a house, and clean sheets, and a roommate, and a dog, and a general support network of neighbors and friends to rely on and socialize with. He's unreasonably fond of Cougar, it's true, but the guy isn't a great conversationalist, especially not when you're both fighting a raging fever and trying not to get perforated by a hail of bullets.

He's decided to seize the moment, weather-wise, and get the washing finished. The soap they've managed to conjure up is a fucking far cry from some Tide back home, but it's good enough at getting general grime out of their sheets, and he's spent most of the afternoon churning a tub full of cotton fabric with a wooden dolly that he'd crudely whittled over the winter with a little instruction from some of the town residents who had actually used one before and not just seen them on Wikipedia.

Once the sheets are as clean as he was going to get them and as wrung out as he can manage, it's time for hanging, which is how Jake ends up in the back yard by the chicken coop and rabbit hutch, Baby tagging along at his heels curiously as he starts to heft sopping wet bundles of white cotton up onto the clothes line, belting out a song at the top of his lungs like he's not in a more or less public space and people can actually hear him.

"I want a Sunday kind of love" he croons at the dog, who cocks his head curiously to one side as Jake pretends the equally crudely-whittled clothespins in his hands are a microphone. "A love to last past Saturday night~"

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You wouldn't guess it by looking at him, but Jake has quite an encyclopedic knowledge of soul classics, dozens of songs by Etta James and Sam Cooke rattling around in his head, sharing space with more obvious choices like Journey and Bon Jovi and Black Sabbath. One of the group homes he lived in growing up was run by a failed musician, and he liked to play Motown and Soul records day in and day out, and sometimes Clay liked to indulge his more maudlin side by listening to bluesy music when he got dumped again. Sometimes he's iffy on the lyrics, or the melody takes a meandering turn, but he's doing pretty well so far.

So well, in fact, that when he wrap up crooning about weekend lovers, he hears applause. Jake, used to being caught out doing ridiculous things, doesn't blush or jump or look guilty for being observed acting like an idiot, just turns and grins over his shoulder.

"Nope," he agrees cheerfully, then returns to the task at hand, wrestling the last sodden mess of sheets over the line and pinning it in place. "She wandered off before I got started." Whether that was because she knows him well enough to know what happens when he starts doing laundry — namely, singing — or because she was bored and wanted to find something to do is up for debate.

He drops the last of the clothespins in his pocket when he finishes, and bends to pick up the washbasin he'd used to carry the sheets out to the yard in. "I can tell her you dropped by, if you want?" he offers, lifting his eyebrows in a way that should hopefully prompt an introduction with names. He's fairly certain he knows basically everyone's names around here, but better safe than sorry, right?

"Has she been doing better," he asks, the hand set behind him at the tree finally drops from its steadying position, and he carries closer in to Jake as he speaks. "I don't know, it just feels like--"

she needs a friend, he doesn't get to say. A dark figure comes bounding through the trees, all excited barks and a thick head hitting him in the backs of the knees. Kira trips forward, grabs the edge of the wash-bin as the only available lifeline and still lands in the dirt, the sheets falling over him to muffle his protests as Aurora bounds over him to bark at and inspect the other dog.

He hadn't realized she'd followed him from the house, but he should have known--she doesn't seem to have any preference for Casey over him, and likely only picked up his trails because any dog would prefer the smell of food over ash.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he sighs more than shouts, fighting his way free of the sheets. Tousled hair and narrowed eyes lifting over the soiled folds, he finds Aurora bouncing on her young, clumsy paws and dipping her head, clearly trying to get the new dog to play. "Aurora, stop," he calls, to little response.

"You'd have to ask Cougar about that," he replies, watching as the young man ambles closer. "He's closer to her than I am..."

Jake lets out a startled yelp when Kira gets bowled over and falls directly into his washing, watching with dismay as this morning's work goes fluttering forlornly to the ground in an undignified wet splop, covering his unfortunate guest and definitely picking up dirt from the ground. The grass hasn't bounced back enough yet to have saved the sheets from the mud that still lingers.

"Goddammit," he sighs, resigned.

Baby, only about nine months old himself, clearly wants to play with the new puppy, but thankfully Cougar's training has managed to stick, and he remains sitting neatly where he'd been left, glancing between the new arrival and Jake, asking for permission before he does anything. Jake, because he's a sucker, immediately gives in and gestures at the dog, which he takes as the permission it is, leaping up and launching himself playfully at his new friend.

Leaving them to it, he turns back to where Kira's still sprawled on the ground and reaches out. "Need a hand?"

Blustering a sigh, the cause of his friend's excited dog clearly lost, Kira can only wordlessly take the offered hand by its wrist and let himself be helped upright. He's as muddy as the sheets, and he takes a fortifying breath against the squelch of his body loosing from it.

Most days he appreciates the distraction of her, and the way she fills a hole in Casey's side.

Some days he remembers why he's always preferred cats.

"I'm sorry," he sighs, bending once he's upright to help gather the sheets. He aims a mutinous stair beyond Jake to the dogs, watching Aurora roll into the same mud to be inspected by the snuffling muzzle of her larger friend. Every one and every thing is getting a bath tonight, he decides, wishing their little bungalows came with hoses attached to the outside. "I didn't know she was following along, she's like--a dog-toddler as far as I know. I can wash those for you, I have to do laundry now anyway."

Waving away Kira's apology, Jake helps him gather up the soiled washing and bundle it all back in the tub. "Don't worry about it," he insists, sounding resigned and mildly annoyed, but not actually that upset. "Baby was little not too long ago, I know what they're like. Plus I'm used to kids, and those things are dirt machines."

He straightens and looks Kira over consideringly, settling his hands on his hips. "I think Cougar's things will fit you," he decides, then gestures at the muddy clothes Kira is currently wearing. "Strip. I'll wash those too, I've already got everything out and ready to go, there's no need to make you haul it all back to your place."

Fresh water will need to be heated, but that's not impossible to do, and the weather is so nice that Jake doesn't really mind having to re-do all the laundry. He'll whine and complain about it the next time laundry day rolls around, perhaps putting on such a performance that Cougar will give in and do the laundry for him, but for now, it's alright.

He whistles sharply when he notices Baby and his new friend veering a little too close to the properly line, such as it is, and thankfully his dog comes bounding back immediately. "Keep an eye on them while I go grab some things?" he asks Kira, not waiting for a response before heading back inside the house.

"Dirt machines come in all species and ages," Kira replies, thinking of the grown men he points at the bath just as often as the dog. If there's ash or fur or feathers it'll wind up on Casey; if there's moss or grease to be found Bodhi will take a nap in it. He's given up doing their laundry any more often than his own: if they want their clothes clean, he's not their mother.

The weather's nice but not so much so that he takes more than his flannel off before Jake reappears, slinging it over his shoulder and finding a stick to bond with his neighbor's dog in the tried and true method of tug-of-war. When he returns, Kira's experimentally handed his end to Aurora, and the dogs are trying to carry the stick away in two mouths, from two heights, with two ideas of where to go--and neither of them looking the least put out by the obstacle of the other.

"You really think these will fit me," he asks, his reluctance to drop his jeans in a stranger's yard entirely related to the vague outline of Cougar being far more filled out than he is, if not much taller.

Watching the two dogs flouncing across the yard in a lop-sided gallop makes Jake laugh brightly, a loud, booming sound that makes Baby pause for a second to see what's going on before he returns his attention to his new friend.

He holds out a pile of Cougar's clothes to Kira — the tee he'd been gifted when he lost his memory and thought he was a teenager again, and a pair of his scrub pants with their drawstring waistband — and lifts his eyebrows at him. "It's either Cougar's clothes or Veronica's, since I know for a fact my stuff won't fit," he replies, glancing down at himself and looking back at Kira pointedly. "C'mon, you can change inside if you don't want to strip in front of an audience, just toss the muddy stuff out when you're done."

"I'm more afraid of Veronica's wrath than being seen in one of her outfits," he counters, having spent a few bored afternoons in their teens letting Flor dress him up. Even his negligent frame might stretch the fabrics, and he shrugs the muddied flannel from his shoulder, swapping it with the pile.

If he had less to hold up while trying to change in the middle of the yard, he might call the implied bluff--instead, he tugs his tank up over his head with his free hand and deposits that in Jake's hands as well, carrying the rest toward the back door of the house. "I don't mind the audience, I just know no one's carrying cash out here," he jokes, letting the door bang shut behind him and changing his pants out in a near stranger's kitchen.

He's done weirder things, even before he got here.

When he returns, drawstring tied tight and shirt hanging a bit off him, sits with his legs sticking out the bars of the small back stoop and tosses the jeans to Jake. "So how much of the what're you in for conversation do you want to skip, now that we're doing laundry day together," he asks.

Jake chuckles, taking a moment to point a finger in Kira's direction. "Smart man," he proclaims, apparently wholly approving of being afraid of Veronica's wrath.

Kira's tank gets added to the muddy sheets in the wash basin, and Jake keeps half an eye on the dogs cavorting around, growling at each other as they tug on their shared stick. He's pleased to see Baby isn't using his greater bulk to his advantage too much, letting Aurora have a fair go at winning possession of the stick. "I'm spoken for," he replies absently, slowly turning his head to watch as Kira ascends the back steps. "I don't think I'd be allowed to tip you even if I wanted to."

Jake's never been to a strip club as someone with a boyfriend before, so he doesn't know the proper etiquette.

"Hey, put the kettle on the stove while you're in there!" he shouts after the door has banged shut, having forgotten to set the water to heat before he came out with spare clothes.

When Kira returns, he'll find Jake crouched in the middle of the yard, one hand rubbing Baby's belly and the other slowly petting over Aurora's muzzle as she smells his fingers curiously, getting acquainted with his scent. He grabs the jeans tossed at him without looking up from the dogs, depositing them in the basin with everything else before straightening to his full height and stretching to make his back pop. "Hey, I got all day, we might as well start at the beginning. We got a lot of time to kill, now."

"Don't worry," he clarifies, the door cracked behind him to let him hear when the kettle whistles for his return: "I wasn't really trying." Not that Jake wasn't another example of the odd trend the place had, attractive people crawling out of the foubtain like a romantic comedy version of The Ring. Not for the first time, Kira wonders if it's in the fucking criteria.

It's the kind of thought that marries itself to the general plummeting feeling he got in his stomach, at the idea of anything beyond empty flirting.

He kicks his heels against the side of the stoop and ignores it now. "Fair enough. How long have you been here then? How long have you been taken," he asks, the mischief returning only half-force behind it.

"You aren't really my type, besides," Jake adds, shrugging apologetically. So far, his type has basically just been Cougar-shaped, and he maintains part of that is Stockholm Syndrome, on both sides. They've been attached at the hip for so long that nobody else would be able to deal with them. It's a good thing Cougar stopped being such a fucking dumbass and let this thing between them actually happen. "Sorry."

Jake loiters in the yard, knowing he'll have to haul the wash basin up into the kitchen to fill it, but not wanting to bother moving just yet.

"Two hundred and forty-three days," Jake replies succinctly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his overalls. "Just over eight months. The last thing I remember before arriving was the Fourth of July, so by my estimation we're in April. Assuming I didn't lose any time between home and here. I wasn't in the first wave, but it was pretty close. I think others had been here about two weeks before I showed up." He shrugs, still unsettled by the whole notion, but having grown used enough to it not to bother putting in the effort to be too upset. "You?"

It doesn't sting, for all Jake started the joke and Kira had meant to end it; but it's another drop of water on the duck's back, a hundred memories blurring together of clubs and apps, masc4masc and no asians under pictures of guys who blur just as easily into Jake. There's a sense of green in the apology, a single sliver of it in a sidewalk crack, opening leaves to the sun, telling Kira that isn't what this is, but he shrugs in a more subdued way than he's responded to anything else.

As if sensing the change, Aurora extricates herself from her new charges and wanders over to gently put the entire arch of his foot in her mouth, staring up with her dark eyes until Kira laughs softly and tugs himself free.

"I think I've had about five," he says, coming back to the conversation and refusing to sulk over a bunch of assholes he wouldn't have enjoyed anyway. He'd done just fine for himself over the years, confidence being a key. "And I did lose time," and more besides, in that setback. "It was almost spring, and I came here just before the blizzard snowed us in. In time to get one of those backpacks from you," he recalls, though he can't remember what, if anything, he'd given in turn.

He's said something wrong. It's obvious if you look closely, Kira's posture has shifted and his expression has shuttered. Spending the past decade of his life with Cougar within arm's reach has meant that Jake has grown really good at reading body language and nonverbal cues. That Kira and Cougar are different men doesn't make that much of a difference; some things are universal. The only problem is that Jake doesn't know what he's said.

He watches carefully as Aurora comes closer to her human and hauls him out of his funk, making a quiet note to himself to watch his words more carefully.

It wouldn't do to alienate people in the village. You never know when you'll need an ally.

"Jesus," he breathes, shocked by the revelation that Kira hadn't just ported straight from home to here. "Fuck, you lost two whole seasons?" He blows out a breath through clenched teeth, the sound whistling, and slowly shakes his head. The backpack comment gets ignored, because he's still not sure what the hell to do with the knowledge that he'd apparently given a good two thirds of the village survival kits. Which is nice, whatever, but it hadn't been a conscious decision on his part, so it's pretty freaky.

"It's pretty obvious this is more than a simple kidnapping," he starts, lifting a hand and scratching his cheek through his beard, "what with some of us thinking we're Vikings and whatever, but if you missed six months of time, that's not something you can do without permanent damage topside." Like this is all a dream, some kind of weird Inception-style mind-heist and they're all under a drug-induced spell. "Even being knocked out for longer than a couple minutes spells long-term problems, if you were drugged and put in some kind of coma, you'd definitely be able to tell, by muscle wasting alone."

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